Storage of automobiles in conventional drive through self-parking garages is not space efficient. Typically, the necessary drive through lanes that allow driver access can require as much as half the total parking space. Given the high land, construction, and maintenance costs in cities, parking costs are inflated because of their wasted space.
To reduce the waste of valuable parking space, many garages provide parking attendants that accept automobiles from drivers, parking the automobiles in compact rows. However, retrieval of a particular automobile can be time consuming, requiring temporary repositioning of many automobiles to permit exit of the desired automobile. In addition, because many drivers desire to park their own automobiles, and because of the high cost of providing parking attendants, this is not an ideal solution to the problem of wasted parking space.
Alternatively, mechanical systems have been described for the automatic storage and retrieval of vehicles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,926 describes a transfer mechanism for handling a pallet that supports a self-parked vehicle. Another example of a mechanical vehicle handling system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,579, in which modules are moved by a sophisticated hydraulic system. However, such complex vehicle parking systems are expensive, and can be slow to operate.
There is therefore a need for a containerized vehicle storage system which is cost efficient, which utilizes a relatively non-complex design in order to minimize downtime due to mechanical failures, and which minimizes the time required for retrieval of a vehicle stored therein. The present invention is directed toward meeting these needs.